A little Decor

So, other than baking, I love to get “crafty”. My recent project has been to give my outdated living room a makeover! 

It all started when I was at Marshalls and came across this lil thingy magig and plopped 3 fun candles in it. 

 

From there it grew into a whole new living room. I found a great fabric for my ottoman at Joann’s that was the blueish color of the big candle. I knew I wanted yellow chevron and some other fabrics and ended up ordering from fabric.com with great success! They were fast and efficient because they allowed me to order by the 1/2 yard! My first step was recovering the ottoman which turned out gorgeous if I do say so myself.

I found the perfect slip cover for my large oversized couch at Target then searched SureFit.com to find its counterpart for the husband chair. After donning both covers, I cut fabric for 4 different pillows and sewed the new pillows! 

 

I also found two new great lamps from Target to add a little pop. My last finishing touch was to add some chevron to my table top tray. (thanks to Katie from work for the idea!)

 

Overall I am in love with my new room! It is bright and airy and puts a smile on my face! Here is the before and after!

 

Happy Tuesday!

Sunscreen Facts

I was reading Women’s Health Mag when I was on my trip to Houston awhile back and came across a really good article regarding sunscreen. There are so many informative topics but I wanted to share two little known facts that could be very helpful this summer for yall!

1. Sunscreen Expires! 

I am totally guilty of pulling out the sandy beaten up bottles from last year that have sat in my pool bag over the cold winter months in the back of my closet. Yes, there is an expiration date on these bottles that typically lasts 2-3 years however this is when the bottles are stored under normal conditions. Lets face it…Those bottles are sandy and have faded labels from sitting out in the HOT sun… therefore reducing their lifetime. For your skins sake, I say buy yourself some new screen at the start of each summer!

2. the Number well, kinda doesn’t matter!

I have been blessed with a darker skin tone, but my friends who have more fair skin are always looking and talking about SPF number. There have been rumors for years that nothing over 30 really is different, etc etc. It appears that the amount of UVB rays filtered out by 15,30,50, and 100 differ in a minor way when they are applied appropriately. Women’s Health Mag reported that a good rule of thumb is if you burn easily use SPF 50 if not there is no need to go over 30. Remember also to apply generously or else you are doing yourself no good!

 

Hope these lil tidbits help. This summer my favorite screen has been Aveeno Sunscreen. This is the only one so far that has not made me break out and has not left my skin feeling gross! It sells in target ~9$ but totally worth it! 

My pretty friends and me at Lake Norman, sufficiently screened from the sun

Happy Monday!

Interval Sprints

Yesterday I set out for what I intended to be a long run early in the morning since I knew I had a full day of activities ahead of me. Well, as we know things do not always go as planned and my legs were just not feeling right for steady state endurance that day (I think this was a result of a previous heavy leg lift and yoga the night before). After 1.5 miles I decided to switch to sprints. I used every other telephone poll as my guide. If I had to guesstimate I would say they were probably about 30-40yd sprints, thank you Randolph Rd. in Charlotte. On my last sprint back I looked to my left and realized I should have just done the sprints in the fields across from my apartment complex (oops, you live and you learn…) Turned out to be a really challenging HIIT workout and I felt good the rest of the day! Next time you are going for an outdoor workout try some sprints!

And my motivational picture for the day… I want this girls legs!

image from http://www.womenshealthmag.com

Workout Planner

I recently decided to start planning my workouts on Sunday Nights to give my routines some structure so I am not wandering aimlessly trying to decide what to do at the gym! I have done this for the past two weeks and it has really helped! For me, It holds me a little bit more responsible to get things done. I have enjoyed doing this so much that I think I might buy one of those mini planners simply for workouts. Do any of you do this?

Here is a sample of this week: (I have had to switch my off day to wednesday of this week but i will just do that workout on thursday)

 

Happy Monday!

Sunday Dessert

I am having a few girls over tonight to watch the must see Real Housewives of NJ (don’t judge…) and figured I would whip up a little treat! My Cake plate was staring at me so I decided on a round cake. Strawberries are gorgeous and juicy in the stores now and seemed like the perfect garnish.

 

I of course attempted to skinny-fy this cake.

Cake Ingredients: 1 box Duncan Hines French Vanilla, 3/4 cup nonfat greek yogurt, 2 egg whites, 1.3 cup water.

 

Mix all the ingredients with blender. I poured the batter into two 9 inch rounds.

 

 

While the cakes were baking, I sliced some really think strawberries to put in the middle of the cake and some normal cut berries for on top! I made a simple buttercream icing then began the layering!

 

 

And the final product:) Happy Sweet Sunday!

Turkey Burger

With a weekend full of eating, I wanted to get back on track with some clean foods. I made my usual quinoa but this time I added asparagus, grape tomatoes and pre grilled chicken! It was the most delicious and clean surprise during lunch today! Tonight, I made these simple turkey burgers that are clean and filling. I enjoyed one over a bed of sweet butter lettuce topped with sautéed red peppers and a side of cubed baked butternut squash.

Ingredients: 

• 1.3lb 99% lean ground turkey
• 1/4 cup Reduced fat feta cheese 
• basil
• oregano
• garlic powder
• salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients with hands and form 4 big patties. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to have grills at our apartment so I just simply pan fried mine and they turned out delicious nonetheless! If you don’t want to eat all the patties right away, you can easily store an uncooked one! Happy TuesdaY!

Cold Calorie Burn?

I have been out of town the past few days visiting two of my best friends from grad school in Houston, TX! It was a weekend full of laughs, good food, and country western dancing (yup, I went out for a night, ditched the heels for some boots…shocker, i know!) During my long flights this weekend, I found a lot of interesting things readying Fitness and Women’s Health.

One interesting little tidbit that I saw in the June issue of Fitness was that being in a cold environment actually makes you burn more calories. Shivering, or the body’s way of coping with the cold by contracting muscles, burns significant calories in effort to keep your body temperature at the normal. (Makes sense if you think about it, you may be getting a little extra calorie burn with a cold AC environment)

From this article, I did a little research and found a lot of articles online questioning whether you get an increased calorie burn when you workout in the cold. There were many articles but none with significant findings to prove of a higher caloric burn in cold weather sports! Despite the same calorie burn, all those cold weather sports including snowboarding and ski-ing are high energy expenditure sports!

How Cold do you like your space?